I, Robot
by MousyNona
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a robot who had a very big decision to make.


_Set in Season 3, Episode 9_

Disclaimer: Grey's Anatomy is not mine!

Once upon a time, not so long ago, Bambi had called her a robot. He'd chosen her out of all the other interns to help with his father's valve replacement surgery - his _father_, for Chrissakes - because she was made out of chrome and metal. And machines, they never fucked up.

Izzie called her emotionless. Karev, a bitch.

Christina had personally thought they were all idiots because she was clearly a ten blade. A shiny, hard ten blade that could cut through bone and flesh and tendon and sinew without a flinch because she had an _edge_. When she was in surgery, there was nothing and no one else in the room except for her hands and the tools she was using to create miracles. In that room, she was a tool herself and yet she was a creator and a god, all at once.

She had thought she was a blade, impartial. Impervious.

_Oh, the irony_.

It had turned out that she'd been right, that she'd been a tool - but a tool for him to use as he pleased. And now she was very obviously broken because even now, as she ran through the halls of Seattle Grace with blood covering her front (_the blood of betrayal_ _as he'd slashed away at the trust between them_) -

Even now all she could think about was how this would hurt _him_. About how _he_ would react once he found out she'd told the Chief of Surgery about his hand tremor.

She had given everything for him. Countless sleepless hours, hundreds of pages of readings and he had ordered her out of the surgery room like she'd been a naughty child.

"_You're not needed here, Yang."_

"_But - "_

"_I don't need you here."_

"We were a team." A whisper snuck out of Christina before she could stop it and, how fitting, because there could be no better indicator that she was broken. Even her larynx was defective, not to mention her chronic case of cardiomyopathy. She was 94% sure it was inoperable, and therefore fatal.

Cardiomyopathy. In plebian wording, heart break.

_Before Miranda Bailey had stepped into O.R. 2, the operating room had been sacred._

_She'd literally been a part of him while they were operating together. His hand, which was connected by the nervous system to his heart, pumping blood up the neural system and firing messages through his synapses and Christina had been a part of all that, a part of him. _

_It had been something like sex and a lot like love, except Christina was allergic to the word and so would never admit it in the light of day. But she thought he'd known anyway, just from the unspoken way they'd move from arterial wall to running whip stitch._

_And then Bailey had stepped into O.R. 2 and she'd realized just how wrong she'd been._

Once upon a time there was a little robot named Christina. Then a surgeon, a surgeon who stitched up hearts, had come and cut hers open and transfused out the motor oil, filled her up with type A, rH neg, grafted out the steel and replaced it with epidermis. He had made her human.

Once upon a time, Christina's world had been simple and now it was not. Everything was so much more _confusing_ now and she had so much more respect for Izzie because god, feelings hurt.

Christina paused outside of the Chief's door with her hand on the knob. Part of her wished the Chief would somehow sense she was outside and open the door himself. Part of her wished someone would force her to the psych ward, because obviously she was not in her right mind if she was hyperventilating outside of the Chief of Surgery's office with blood covering her front. Anything to take this decision away from her.

But this was her decision to make. No one but her should be able to make a decision that could ruin his entire life.

Should she go in and tell the Chief everything, probably ruining his entire career and his recent promotion to Chief of Surgery? Or should she continue deceiving everyone about the tremor in his right hand?

How was a person supposed to make choices like this?

Christina leaned her cheek on the cool oak wood of the door and let the chill soothe her. Whatever she chose, she had to make the right decision.

She thought of all those late nights studying so she would know what she was doing when he called her in to humpty dumpty surgeries. She thought of the worry in Meredith's eyes when Christina had woken her up at 5 AM. She thought of his shaking fingers and the sweat on his forehead as they both wondered if today, _today_ would be the day they killed someone in surgery because they had neglected to report his tremor.

She thought of the joy in his face as he thought of his promotion. She thought of his terror as he tried - and failed - to complete a running whip stitch because his traitor fingers could no longer hold a ten blade for hours at a time. She thought of him - of _Burke_ -

And stopped.

24 hours in a day, 7 days a week all she did was think of Burke. And now that she was human, she had wants and needs too. She had an internship to finish, surgeries to watch and she couldn't live like this anymore. Her chrome-hybrid heart could only hold so much.

She opened the door.


End file.
